Asymmetry in Photography

Asymmetry in photography means the two sides of the frame do not match: the main subject sits off center, and what holds the picture steady is something different on the other side, a smaller shape, a patch of color, a shadow, or empty space. When it works, the photograph feels balanced without looking arranged, and it has a sense of movement that a mirrored frame does not.

Most good photographs are asymmetrical, because most of the world is. Learning to balance unequal things, one of the core skills of photography composition, is what lets you put a subject anywhere in the frame on purpose, instead of in the middle by habit or near the edge by accident.

Asymmetry, symmetry and balance are three different ideas

The words get mixed up, so it helps to pull them apart.

• Symmetry is about shape: one half of the frame mirrors the other. Symmetry in photography covers mirror, radial and reflected symmetry and how to stand exactly on the axis.
• Asymmetry is also about shape: the halves differ. Nearly every photograph is asymmetrical in this plain sense.
• Balance is about how the picture feels: whether one side seems to pull harder than the other. A symmetrical frame is balanced by its matching halves. An asymmetrical frame can be balanced or not, and that is the skill this page is about.

So “asymmetrical balance” (sometimes called informal balance) means unequal elements arranged so that neither side wins. “Imbalance” means one side clearly does win. Both are choices. The thing to avoid is a picture that is unbalanced when you meant it to rest, or that rests when you meant it to feel uneasy.

Look at the two photographs below and decide which one is built on symmetry. Then ask what the other one uses to hold itself steady, since it cannot rely on matching halves.

Which photo is built on symmetry?

A B

The seesaw: how a small thing balances a big one

The oldest model for asymmetrical balance is a seesaw with its pivot at the center of the frame. Rudolf Arnheim, whose Art and Visual Perception is a classic text on the subject, described it this way: an element’s pull depends on how heavy it looks and how far it sits from the center. A heavy thing near the middle can be balanced by a light thing far out toward the edge.

Put rough numbers on it. Say a large, pale building reads as three times as heavy as a small dark figure. If the building sits a tenth of the frame width left of center, the figure balances it at three tenths of the width to the right, because 3 × 0.1 and 1 × 0.3 both come to 0.3. On a frame 6,000 pixels wide, that is the building’s middle 600 pixels left of center and the figure 1,800 pixels right of it, well past the right-hand rule of thirds line (1,000 pixels from center) and a little over halfway to the edge.

Treat those numbers as a way of thinking, not a measurement. Nobody can say a shape weighs exactly three units, and two viewers will not agree to the decimal. What the model gets right is the direction of the effect: the farther something sits from the center, the more it counts. That is why a tiny boat near the edge of a big lake can hold the whole picture, and why moving the counterweight a little toward the edge often fixes a frame that felt lopsided.

Not sure what makes one shape heavier than another? Visual weight in photography goes through every factor, from color to faces, in detail.

What gives an element weight

To balance a picture you have to judge what is heavy. These are the factors that matter most, with the direction each one pushes.

• Size: Heavier when: Larger. Example: A cliff filling a third of the frame.
• Tonal contrast: Heavier when: Very different from what surrounds it. Example: A dark boat on bright water, or a lit window in a dark wall.
• Color: Heavier when: Saturated, warm, or the only color of its kind. Example: One red coat in a grey street.
• Sharpness: Heavier when: In focus while the rest is soft. Example: A sharp flower against a blurred field.
• Detail and texture: Heavier when: Busy, against smooth areas. Example: A patch of rocks in calm water.
• Isolation: Heavier when: Alone, with space around it. Example: One tree on an empty hill.
• People and faces: Heavier when: Almost always, even when tiny. Example: A walker far off in a landscape.
• Distance from center: Heavier when: Farther out. Example: The same figure counts for more near the edge.

One correction to a claim you will meet often. Some guides say dark areas are heavy, others say bright areas are heavy. Both are half right. What carries weight is difference from the surroundings: on a bright beach a dark rock is heavy, and in a dark room a lit face is heavy. Ask what stands out, not what is dark.

The factors also add up. A small element can beat a large one by stacking three or four of them: sharp, saturated, high contrast and human. That is how a figure the size of a fingernail can balance a mountain, a relationship scale in photography explores from the other side.

In the photograph above the heavy mass is obvious: a wedge of dark water fills the lower half. The counterweight is a kayak smaller than a fingernail. It works because it is the strongest spot of color in the frame, it is isolated on calm pale water, and a person is in it. Cover the kayak with a finger and the picture becomes a study of two tones; uncover it and the eye has somewhere to rest.

Direction: where things look and move

Weight is not only how heavy something looks. People, animals, vehicles, and even a leaning tree point somewhere, and the eye follows. That pointing carries weight into the space in front of the subject.

Perception research backs this up. In experiments by Stephen Palmer and colleagues, published in 2008, people judging where a single object looked best in a frame preferred an object facing the viewer at or near the center, but shifted a sideways-facing object off center so that it faced into the frame, with more space ahead of it than behind. Psychologists call this the inward bias. It is the measured version of the old advice to leave a subject room to look or move into.

The speedboat above is far heavier than anything else in the frame and sits left of center. It does not tip the picture over because it is heading right, into open water, toward the boathouse on the far shore. Crop away the right side until the bow nearly touches the edge and the same boat feels cramped, as if it is about to leave the picture.

How much room should a subject get in front of it? The rule of space covers lead room, nose room and when to break them.

Clearly off center, not nearly centered

The most common failure with asymmetry is not too much of it but too little. A subject nudged only slightly off center looks like a mistake: the viewer cannot tell whether you meant to center it and missed, or meant to move it and did not commit. Arnheim described in-between positions like this as ambiguous, and the eye tends to read ambiguity as error.

So make the choice visible. Either center the subject and build on symmetry, or move it far enough that it obviously sits to one side, then give the other side something to do. The thirds lines are one handy place to land, a sixth of the frame width from center, but they are not the only one. A subject close to the edge with a large empty space beside it can work too, as long as the space is doing a job.

Is the empty side of your frame helping or just empty? Negative space explains how open space balances a subject and when it stops working.

How to build an asymmetrical frame, step by step

1. Find the heaviest thing. Usually your subject, but check: a bright sky or a red sign may outweigh it.
2. Choose its side. If it faces or moves, put it on the side it is leaving, so it looks into the frame. If it does not, pick the side where the background behind it is cleaner.
3. Look for a counterweight. On the other side, find something lighter but distinct: a smaller object, a spot of color, a bright patch of light, a second person, or open space with a gradient in it.
4. Adjust the distances. If the subject side still feels heavy, move the counterweight farther from center (by stepping sideways or reframing; zooming out does the opposite, pulling everything toward the center), or move the subject closer to center. Small moves of your feet shift near objects much more than far ones.
5. Check the edges. Asymmetric frames put things near the border, where they easily touch or get cut. Tangents, mergers and checking the edges of the frame shows what to look for.
6. Take three or four versions. Balance is easier to judge between frames than within one.

To try placement without a camera, crop one of the photographs below so the subject sits clearly off center, then look at what is left on the other side and ask whether it holds the picture.

Three quick tests for balance

Balance is a feeling, so test it the way you would test a feeling, by changing something and noticing the difference.

• The flip test. Mirror the photo left to right in your editor or phone. A balanced frame still feels balanced flipped; a frame that was only just holding often tips. Many photographers also find that a frame reads differently flipped, so if it looks better reversed, consider whether the original direction was right.
• The cover test. Cover the counterweight with your hand. If the picture barely changes, the counterweight was not doing anything. If it falls apart, the counterweight was working.
• The squint test. Squint, or shrink the image to a thumbnail. Detail disappears and you see only the masses of light, dark and color, which is what balance is made of.

If a frame fails, editing can shift weight. Cropping moves everything relative to the center, which is the most powerful change you can make (how to crop photos covers ratios and what a crop costs). Brightening or darkening one area changes its contrast with its surroundings; dodging and burning does this locally. Lowering the saturation of a distracting color takes weight away from it.

Asymmetry in landscapes, streets and portraits

Landscapes. The usual pairing is a near, detailed foreground on one side against a large, distant mass on the other: a boulder lower left, a mountain upper right. The foreground is smaller, but it is sharp, textured and close, which gives it weight. Foreground interest covers how to find and place it.

Street. Street photographers often work the other way round: a large, empty or shadowed setting with one small person in it. Fan Ho built his Hong Kong pictures this way, with a single figure in a shaft of light set against walls of black shadow, so the figure balances most of the frame on its own. Street photography covers how to wait for the person to step into place.

Portraits. A formal head-and-shoulders portrait is often centered. An environmental portrait usually is not: the person sits to one side, looking into the frame, and the place they live or work fills the rest and carries the story.

The same idea runs through painting and print. Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa piles the huge wave on the left and leaves the right side open, with Mount Fuji small and low near the center; the open side is what makes the wave feel as if it is about to fall.

Unbalanced on purpose

Balance is not a requirement. A frame weighted heavily to one side, with nothing to answer it, feels uneasy, and sometimes uneasy is right: loneliness, departure, a figure pushed to the edge by its surroundings. The test is whether the imbalance says something. If you can name what the empty or crowded side means, it is a choice. If you cannot, it is probably an accident.

Wondering how placement and color change the mood of a photo? How colors and composition affect emotions looks at the feelings behind each choice.

Common mistakes with asymmetry

• Nearly centering. A subject a few percent off center looks like a miss. Commit to the middle or clearly to one side.
• Putting the subject off center and stopping there. Moving the subject to a thirds line does not balance a frame by itself. Something on the other side, even open space with a tone in it, has to answer it.
• Facing out of the frame by default. A person on the right edge looking right leads the eye straight out. Unless you want that tension, turn the subject or move it to the other side.
• A counterweight that competes. If the secondary element is as strong as the subject, the picture splits into two pictures. The counterweight should be clearly second. Visual hierarchy covers how to rank what the eye sees first, second and last.
• Judging only by size. A big pale sky can weigh almost nothing, and a small bright sign can weigh a lot. Check contrast, color and sharpness too.
• Forgetting the edge. Off-center subjects drift toward the border, where a hand, a wingtip or a horizon can get clipped or touch the frame.

Try this: one subject, three placements

You need ten minutes, a camera or phone, and one subject that stays put: a bench, a parked bicycle, a mug on a table, or a person willing to stand still. Find something smaller and distinct a few steps from it to act as a counterweight, such as a lamp, a plant or a patch of light.

1. Frame the subject dead center, with the counterweight out of the frame. Take the picture.
2. Move so the subject sits only a little off center, about a tenth of the frame width. Take the picture.
3. Move so the subject sits clearly to one side, on or beyond a thirds line, and bring the counterweight into the other side of the frame. Try it near the center and then near the edge. Take both pictures.

Then judge them side by side on a screen. The first should feel calm and still. The second should feel slightly wrong; if it does, you have seen the ambiguous position for yourself. Of the last two, pick the one that feels settled, then run the flip test and the cover test on it. If covering the counterweight makes the picture tip toward the subject, the counterweight was doing its job.

Want to test your eye on composition more broadly? The photography composition quiz asks ten questions about placement, lines and space.

Questions about asymmetry in photography

What is asymmetry in photography?

It is a composition where the two sides of the frame do not mirror each other, usually with the main subject off center. When the different elements still feel even, it is called asymmetrical or informal balance.

Is asymmetry better than symmetry?

Neither is better. Symmetry suits subjects that are symmetrical and moods that are calm, formal or monumental; asymmetry suits most other scenes and gives a sense of movement. The mistake is falling between them, a nearly symmetrical frame that is slightly off.

Is the rule of thirds the same as asymmetry?

The rule of thirds is one way to place a subject asymmetrically: it puts it a sixth of the frame width from center. Asymmetry is the broader idea, and it includes placements nowhere near a thirds line, as long as the balance works.

What is the difference between asymmetrical balance and imbalance?

In asymmetrical balance the unequal elements offset each other, so neither side wins. In imbalance one side clearly outweighs the other, which feels tense or uneasy, and can be used on purpose for that reason.

How do I know if an asymmetrical photo is balanced?

Mirror it left to right, cover the secondary element with your hand, and look at it as a small thumbnail. If it still feels settled after the flip, falls apart when covered, and the masses look even in the thumbnail, it is balanced.

Can one small object balance a whole photograph?

Yes, if it stands out strongly and sits well away from the center. A small, sharp, brightly colored or human element far from the middle can hold its own against a large, plain mass on the other side.